Cell suicide exposes loophole

A 48-year-old man suspected of raping and robbing a 22-year-old woman early this week was found unconscious in his detention cell at Sau Mau Ping Police Station in Hong Kong on Thursday morning. He was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. The police confirmed later that the man, surnamed Lam, hanged himself with a computer cable; an investigation was under way to find out how the cable ended up in his possession. Police deserve praise for apprehending the suspect on Tuesday, just two days after the shocking crime happened on Sunday, but there is no excuse for whatever let the suspect obtain that computer cable.

The rape-and-robbery case Lam was suspected of committing shook the local community and Hong Kong society because of its severity, which is why many people breathed a collective sigh of relief when police nabbed the suspect on Tuesday soon after he tried and failed to withdraw money from an ATM using the victim's bank card. Now we also know the suspect had a very long rap sheet of more than 30 criminal cases, including drug use and robbery, that stretched back 39 years to when he was just 9-years-old. And he lived in a residential estate not far from the crime scene. All these facts point strongly to the possibility that he was desperate to buy a drug fix when he robbed and raped the victim on Sunday.

According to conventional wisdom police should have maintained a closer-than-normal watch on such a suspect. Maybe they did, maybe not. The fact is the suspect hanged himself with a computer cable he should not have had in the first place, all the while restrained by a steel chain around his waist. Some people may argue the suspect's death is no loss to the community, or public safety for that matter, but according to Hong Kong law he was not guilty because no court had yet found him as such through a fair trial.

The coroner's office is now trying to determine the exact cause of Lam's death, while another police taskforce will investigate and find out if the Sau Mau Ping Police Station or someone working there is responsible somehow. We hope the whole truth will emerge at the end of all related investigations, and whoever is responsible will be properly dealt with for sake of the integrity of Hong Kong law. For the meantime, it is safe to say the police need to take a critical look at detention protocols. They should revamp them if necessary to plug any loopholes that may have led to the suspect's death.

(HK Edition 05/12/2017 page1)